Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has embarked on a charity collaboration with the American jewelry brand Foundrae as a way to contribute to PEN America’s funding. The arrangement, which she discussed in a new interview with Vanity Fair, saw her design PEN America’s “Freedom of Expression” medallion, on which appears “Foundrae’s signature lexicon of dainty symbols.” Proceeds from the sales of the medal will go to PEN America.

“I used to joke, many years ago, thank God for PEN because if the Nigerian government ever throws me in prison at least somebody will care,” said Adichie. “I was very happy to do this collaboration because I deeply admire PEN and PEN’s work. PEN has saved writers’ lives. PEN has made it possible for many writers to write. I’ve been a member for years. And to do something I love, something to do with fashion, that helps PEN? Are you kidding? Yes!”

In the interview she discusses her appreciation for fashion, her eagerness to contribute to PEN America, her belief in humane capitalism, reading Edith Wharton, and raising her daughter to be a reader.

About Otosirieze Obi-Young

Otosirieze Obi-Young is Deputy Editor of Brittle Paper. He is a judge for the 2018/19 Gerald Kraak Prize and the 2019 Miles Morland Writing Scholarships. He is an editor at 14, Nigeria’s first queer art collective, which has published volumes including We Are Flowers (2017) and The Inward Gaze (2018). He is the curator of the Art Naija Series, a sequence of e-anthologies of writing and visual art focusing on different aspects of Nigerianness, including Enter Naija: The Book of Places (2016), which explores cities, and Work Naija: The Book of Vocations (2017), which explores professions. His fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review and Transition. He has completed a collection of short stories, You Sing of a Longing, is working on a novel, and is represented by David Godwin Associates literary agency. He attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he got an M.A. in African Studies and a combined honours B.A. in History & International Studies and English & Literary Studies. He taught English at Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu. Find him at otosirieze.com, where he accepts writing and editing offers, or on Instagram or Twitter: @otosirieze. When bored, he Googles Rihanna.

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